Man Maintaining Cemetery for no Money

Man Maintaining Cemetery for no Money

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<P>For the past five years, a Wichita Falls man has been on a mission to improve Eastlawn Memorial Cemetery in Wichita County.</P>
<P>For several years family of relatives buried there have complained of unkept grounds.</P>
<P>There was even a case where someone was buried in a plot that belonged to someone else.</P>
<P>But five years ago, problems and complaints about the cemetery started subsiding.</P>
<P>And as Mechell Dixon shows us, it's all thanks to Volunteer Groundskeeper Gary Hubbard.</P></font>

Several days a week, Gary Hubbard leaves work and heads to Eastlawn Memorial Cemetery in Wichita County where he more work without pay.

It all started three years ago when the property was so overgrown... cemetery owners had to help him find his mother's grave.

"Once they did that I just asked him, you know if you'll cut this grass I'll edge every headstone out here and as time went by I found myself purchasing a riding lawnmower and it blossomed from there," says Gary Hubbard, volunteer groundskeeper for the cemetery.

Not only does he mow the property, but so far he has trimmed 18 trees and earlier this year, he erected a 230 foot chain link fence on the property.

It's something Myrtle Donaldson has noticed while visiting the final resting places of her daughter and husband.

"It's a great improvement. It looks much better cause the grass is being kept," says Donaldson.

Kept.... by a man who's goal is to give back.

"All my relatives are out here and I'm gonna be out here one day. So, I hope somebody comes behind me and say, you know what? I want to be like that guy. Maybe he's showing me something cause we have to teach our kids something and respect is the first key. We teach them respect and they'll follow in our footsteps," explains Hubbard.

Mechell Dixon... KFDX 3 News.

Hubbard has finished another project.

A few weeks ago he installed the cemetery's first flag pole, which will be dedicated during a special ceremony Saturday at 10 a.m.